Bolivian Streets (La Paz) ------------------------- ("And hardened in the furnace fires of Bolivian streets") We descended from kings/ Immortal lineage the indian brings/ When the blood of his body is deeper than the source of a spring/ We're rooted to the earth/ More specifically to the path/ from Tierra del Fuego down to Canada on the map/ ...The winds, of change, have come/ But my people have still remained strong in the face of adversity/ I'm mixed blood, almost every color occurs in me/ The culmination of the genetic set of diversity/ Inside the Mayan university, where they taught theories of math, engineering structural city plans/ To the mound-builders of Cahokia/ Long as Andean millenia and the history of Bolivia/ To the city-states of Nasca/ Part of a free-trade pact, spanning Patagonia to Alaska/ To the Caribbean, Blackfoot and through Nebraska/ For Centuries, before anybody conceived of NAFTA/ ..This land was densely populated in fact/ With more peoples in the Americas than Europe at that/ With greater population density than India packed/ Until the epidemics attacked on first contact/ Like n... Chorus: ------- (x2) I admit, it's easier to preach than live it/ I almost lost my life as a Christian/ Lying on my back in derision/ Hardening my heart in my condition/ You never knew it/ Because you never listen/ Hate given over the fate that people were given/ ..And the faith that I wasn't living/ But I refused to remain calm/ ..Thought of myself as strong/ Your mind'll play tricks on you when the devil's got your arm/ And you're alone in a world of harm/ With nothing to lean on but a knife and an ice grill like bronze/ ...I thought I understood the church's past/ Till I was face forward in the reality of brutality/ Seeing indigenous people in poverty/ Because of a colony/ Consecrated by religious authority/ Now I understand the hurt/ And why the people of earth will curse the church/ As if it were dirt/ (chorus) Walking the streets of La Paz/ Giving pause to every thought of Western progression you've ever had/ Inside societies that were ravaged hundreds of years/ You can see another side of humanity that appears/ And another side of yourself when you look in the mirror/ It's enough to make you want to repent/ When you see a grown man cover his face as he's working for rent/ To try to hide the shame of shining your shoes for tweleve cents/ But/ When that's the option you got, gotta take it/ Immigration laws, gotta break it/ Especially when your kids are barely able to sleep from hunger pains/ And you know it stays the same the longer that you remain/ ..You'll become an easy target for blame/ But surviving, you gotta break the rules playing in this unfair game/ Know there's more to life than driving a car with a fancy name/ So I spit a flame to create change.